Cambodia’s NGO Law Reveals Growing Confidence

Human rights organizations are up in arms over a proposed law in Cambodia that would tighten authorities’ oversight over non-governmental organizations – and potentially cripple the country’s civil society, activists say.

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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen speaks to the media during a press conference at the government’s Peace Building in Phnom Penh on July 22, 2011.

It’s still unclear if the current draft of the law, which would impose potentially onerous new reporting and registration rules on NGOs and aid groups working there, will be approved. But even if it isn’t, the simple act of proposing such a law could flag an important stage in Cambodia’s economic and political evolution, analysts say, as Phnom Penh grows more confident about disengaging with Western donors.

Once a political and economic basket-case, Cambodia was overwhelmingly reliant on foreign aid for much of the past several decades as it recovered from years of civil war, including an immense United Nations peacekeeping mission undertaken here in the early 1990s.

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In recent years, though, Cambodia has enjoyed substantial economic growth that has made it somewhat less dependent on donors.

The country recorded gross domestic product growth of greater than 10% in the years preceding the global financial crisis. While growth sputtered to just 0.1% in 2009, it bounced back to 6.3% last year and is set to hit 6.8% in 2011, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Foreign direct investment has increased twelve-fold since 2004, buoyed by billions of dollars worth of projects and assistance from China.

This newfound income has led to a flood of luxury sport utility vehicles on the streets of Phnom Penh and the emergence of a small urban elite that has flourished while most of the population remains trapped in grinding poverty, with per capita gross national income hitting just $650 in 2009. Tens of thousands of Cambodians, meanwhile, have been pushed off their farmland in recent years, activists say, to make room for large-scale plantations run by large investors at home and from beyond Cambodia’s borders.

Some activists say the government is now reinforcing these inequities, choosing a superficial vision for development and shunning more inclusive approaches.

“They are just playing a game of numbers, and the quality of development, the quality of services, the quality of governance, rule of law… who cares?” said Lao Mong Hay, a Phnom Penh-based analyst formerly of the Asian Human Rights Commission.

The government is responding with criticisms and threats of its own, often targeted at Western aid givers.

Last year, officials in Phnom Penh threatened to expel the UN’s country head and later warned all embassies and diplomatic missions not to try to “criticize or give lessons” to the Cambodian government. A visit by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon proved disastrous, as Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened during a meeting to close the UN’s local human rights office and prematurely shutter Phnom Penh’s UN-backed war crimes tribunal, according to Cambodia’s foreign minister.

The new NGO law, meanwhile, could potentially make it harder for critics to operate in the country, or so NGOs and human rights activists say.

Earlier this month, a group of 10 major international human rights organizations appealed to the United Nations to speak out against the proposed legislation, while the U.S. and other donors have also raised concerns about the NGO law. The current draft would “allow the Royal Government of Cambodia to intimidate and potentially shut down… groups that criticize the government,” organizations including Human Rights Watch wrote in an open letter.

Critics cite last month’s suspension of Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, a local housing rights group that has criticized the government, as a preview of what may be to come.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan dismissed these concerns, saying Phnom Penh sees NGOs as “partners” and that the pending law will be designed “to protect those organizations.” Although Mr. Hun Sen has in the past praised China for offering aid without the attendant political and human rights conditions stipulated by other donors, Mr. Siphan said the government has no intention to disengage with Western countries.

“We try our best to be neutral, and we need everyone to help us in order to maintain an independent state, to fight poverty,” he said.

Mr. Hun Sen has clashed often with international groups over the course of his quarter-century tenure. The premier has long chafed at the strings often attached to Western aid, but at the same time, the country’s budget ultimately still depends in large measure on this funding, said Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.

“It’s this back-and-forth and ongoing tug of war – trying to get the money, and they know they need it, but trying not to comply with strings … so they can get the money and do whatever they want,” Mr. Virak said.

As the government’s position continues to stabilize, there may be more tugs to come.

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